Burma Rd Butterfly Walk
May 7, 2019 02:30 PM
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May 7, 2019 04:48 PM
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Latitude: 42.227
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Longitude: -71.131
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Radius (m): 1070
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Distance traveled: 3m
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Duration: 138 minutes
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Number of observers: 1
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Walked Burma Rd through Fowl Meadow looking for butterflies, hoping for Compton's Tortoiseshell (didn't find it). Also noted many birds, and a few reptiles and other insects.
Note that I basically went in a straight line for a mile and a half, then back. Of course, this tool maps circles...
Target List
Observations
Photos / Sounds
No photos or sounds
What
Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa)Observer
maractwinDescription
Circled us on the trail, but wouldn't put down for a photo.
Comments
Just trying the trip functionality here. I did see a couple of butterflies that I didn't get photos of, so they aren't represented. I see several shortcomings with how this works, but it is a start.
curious to hear your thoughts maractwin. Yes adding coarse taxa like 'Papilionoidea' to your target list when you aren't sure you can give a robust yes/no (ie post observations or not) for each species can lead to bad interpretation of the data. For example, say you saw a swallowtail fly by that could have been an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail but aren't sure. This trip (and the lack of an obs of Eastern Tiger Swallowtail) is being recorded as an absence for that species:
https://www.inaturalist.org/trips/tabulate?utf8=%E2%9C%93&filters%5Btaxon_name%5D=Eastern+Tiger+Swallowtail&filters%5Btaxon_id%5D=60551&filters%5Bplace_id%5D=&filters%5Bmonth%5D=&filters%5Byear%5D=&filters%5Buser_id%5D=10787
Not sure how to make that clearer to users, but might be worth only allowing species on the target list if its just too confusing to allow coarser taxa.
Is it supposed to be a part of your Journal? In the right upper hand I see a link to your posts.
@optilete please see https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/trips How to view a trip -> (1) 'Trips on iNaturalist are extensions of journal posts...'
I just typed a long critique of trips, and lost it due to a bug that I've reported before, but don't think anyone has put any effort into fixing. This tab had been open in my browser for 7 hours, so when I tried to add the comment, the session data on the form was expired and the comment not entered. This bug gets me quite regularly, as I keep tabs with interesting observations open on my browser and sometimes take a while to enter a comment.
bummer - I've not encountered that before. Please report to the forum if you want it looked into
Here’s my second try at comments on trips, shorter than the first time.
I did enter observations without media for the butterflies I saw but was unable to photograph.
I would rather not have trips be part of journals, as that will probably stop me from making every hike I do be a trip, even though I usually make a comprehensive butterfly list each time I go out (I also do an eBird list for nearly every outing).
It would be nice if you could create a custom shape (i.e. a KML file) for the area covered, rather than always have it be a circle.
I’d love to be able to see a list of the species NOT seen, but to generate a useful one would require iNat knowing which butterflies are currently in flight and in range. Not many ranges are entered, and I don’t think there’s even provision for tracking flight periods.
I’m not worried about choosing a higher level taxon like Papilionoidea for my target, as I’m pretty good at finding most of them that are around during a hike. And I’m not afraid to record something to genus when the exact species wasn’t evident in a fly-by (i.e. Colias sp. when I couldn’t tell Clouded vs. Orange Sulphur). Just have to remember that there is an observation bias—all of the swallowtails are likely to be observed, but not all of the Lycaenids.
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